RACE REPORT

GENERAL
What should have been the best GT race of the year, turned out to be a no-show for many of the Porsches that have supported the series all year. I believe they stayed home because of the current state of the GT rules. The race was mostly a parade except for lead changes between #64, #21 and #16. It was exciting for the drivers but probably not for the fans.

Some form of rules parity is needed for GT. In this race, the rules disparity was obvious. The factory Pontiac GTO's are two seconds faster than the fastest Porsche anytime they want to be. The BMW's are about ½ second slower than the GTO's and 1-1/2 seconds faster than the fastest Porsche. It is what it is. There were no cautions to regroup the field and mask the inequalities. We got lapped twice on green flag racing. We didn't make any mistakes, had a good car the whole distance and got smoked by the rules.

The factory Pontiac GTO's have too big an inlet restrictor. The original size (58mm) was about right. The factory BMW's have too much tire and power. We should all be on the same size tires and the BMW's need an inlet restrictor to equalize the HP with the Porsches.

SET-UP
We had a good set-up for both cars. This race is a compressed schedule with two practices and qualifying between 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. the same day. We made shock changes and wicker bill changes only.

RACE STRATEGY
Practice and qualifying speeds showed the race would go the full 2 hours, 45 minutes. Our fuel window opened at Lap 75. The engine burbled at Lap 79 and we stopped. The race was green flag from start to finish so no alternate strategies came into play.

RACE
The #80 started 6 th and the #81 16 th . After one lap the order was: #64 Pontiac GTO, #16 BMW, #22 BMW, #26 Patrick Long Porsche, #21 BMW and #80 Porsche. On the second lap the #22 BMW started fading and lost 4 positions in the next 5 laps. The #26 tried to race the #16 BMW but cooked the tires and got passed by the #21 BMW. David got within 0.5 seconds of #26 but then lost 6 seconds avoiding contact with #73 (Tafel) when the #73 spun while being passed by Patrick Long. On Lap 20 the #81 passed #04. On Lap 26, the #16 passed the #64 for the lead. On Lap 30 the order was 16-64-21-26-80-36-65. #80 was -3 seconds to #26 and + 2 seconds to #36, but 24 seconds behind the leaders. On Lap 63, #64 retook the lead and #21 BMW got by the #16 BMW. On Lap 66 #65 passed #36. #14 pitted for fuel on Lap 70, #26 on Lap 75, #16 on Lap 76. #65 and #80 on Lap 79. We did driver change (David out, Craig in) and 4 tires in 40 seconds and had to wait 10 more seconds for the fuel, but still were faster than the BMW's and Pontiacs on the stop. When we pitted, the #65 came on pit road right behind the #80. After the stop, we were +15 seconds on #65. By Lap 85 we were lapped by #21, #64, and #16. #81 pitted on their Lap 79 and Mae got out and David in.

#65 started doing 1:03.5's and Craig was doing 1:05's. By Lap 98, #65 had caught and passed #80. The order was #21 BMW (faster stop than the Pontiac), then 64-16-65-80-57-36. On Lap 99, #64 retook the lead. On Lap 105, #81 pitted (David out, Mae in). On Lap 125 the #36 was losing water and retired two laps later. On Lap 130 the #64 factory Pontiac GTO lapped the #16 BMW. On Lap 140 the order was 64-21/16-65-80/22-26-73. The next lap #22 pitted for a spash and go which allowed Patrick Long to catch and pass him 2 laps from the end for 6 th . #80 finished 5 th , two laps down, and #81 finished 13 th .

RACE ANALYSIS
Our #80 ran a near perfect race. Both drivers and crew were excellent. The pit stop was the best on pit row, again.

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